Visualization in Biology
or Why #barbarplots?
Christina Bergmann
July 28th, 2016
Current job: Post doc in Paris (École Normale Supérieure, Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique)
Current job: Post doc in Paris (École Normale Supérieure, Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique)
Background: Cognitive Science, Neuroscience
Experience: Human (adult, child, baby) data, Computational models, Meta-analyses
“#barbarplots” campaign barbarplots.github.io
Data? Distributions
Inference? Statistical tests
A typical paper reports t(23) = 5.721, p < .05. If we are lucky, we get descriptive data.
What have we learned from this? Not much, actually!
Figures might reinforce bad practices
Figures might reinforce bad practices
We launched #barbarplots because the use of barplots is misleading for many reasons:
Reinforcing binary thinking and “neat” data
The case of the Anscombe Quartet: Bars
The case of the Anscombe Quartet: Boxes
The case of the Anscombe Quartet: Boxes with raw data
The case of the Anscombe Quartet: Violins
The case of the Anscombe Quartett: Violins and raw data
Balance between clarity and informativeness
Source: Cogtales
Allen, E. A., Erhardt, E. B., & Calhoun, V. D. (2012). “Data visualization in the neurosciences: overcoming the curse of dimensionality.” Neuron, 74 (4), 603-608. Paper
Anscombe, F. J. (1973). “Graphs in Statistical Analysis.” American Statistician 27 (1): 17–21. pp. 17-21. Paper
Open Science Collaboration. (2015). “Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science.” Science, 349 (6251). OSF project page
Simmons, J. P., Nelson, L. D., & Simonsohn, U. (2011). “False-Positive Psychology: Undisclosed Flexibility in Data Collection and Analysis Allows Presenting Anything as Significant.” Psychological Science, 22 (11). pp. 1359-1366. Paper
Weissgerber, T. L., Garovic, V. D., Savic, M., Winham, S. J., & Milic, N. M. (2016). “From Static to Interactive: Transforming Data Visualization to Improve Transparency.” PLoS Biol, 14(6), e1002484. Paper
Weissgerber, T. L., Garovic, V. D., Winham, S. J., Milic, N. M., & Prager, E. M. (2016). Transparent reporting for reproducible science. Journal of Neuroscience Research. Editorial. Paper
Weissgerber, T. L., Milic, N. M., Winham, S. J., & Garovic, V. D. (2015). “Beyond bar and line graphs: Time for a new data presentation paradigm.” PLoS Biology, 13(4), e1002128. Paper
The case of the Anscombe Quartett - the classical plot